𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 ⸻ 𝗱𝗼𝘂𝘅𝗶𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗻 [ completed ! ]

𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐨𝐦

❝𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐚? 𝐨𝐡, 𝐟𝐮𝐳𝐳 𝐛𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐬, 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐨𝐤𝐚𝐲?❞
❝𝐢 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐢 𝐬𝐚𝐰 𝐠𝐨𝐝...❞

｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

      THE FIRST THREE months were hard to get through.

      The young witch already managed to get on Merlin's nerves several times because of her many failures. On the first day of lessons, she was introduced to cabinets full of potion ingredients and elixirs capable of anything if used correctly. The old man even decided to quiz her on what she learned and the only thing she could recall was to never open the fifth cabinet for untold reasons. Upon learning that, she was tempted into snooping and finding out for herself, but quickly shut the idea down. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life as a beetle if she was caught. For now, she assumed it could be some sort of anti-aging potion that the old man used. Honestly, he looked more ancient than the dinosaurs.

      Merlin had bombarded her with more things to memorize around the workshop. She had to know the difference between the different ores and sands used for who knows what. At one point, she mixed up night rune ashes for moon shadow sand when she was tasked with organizing the cabinets and earned a long lecture. To be honest, she almost fell asleep a few times. There were at least two hundred little bottles that were almost identical if she looked hard enough. When it seemed like he grew annoyed with her small progress, he surprised her with a blank leather bound book before her morning lessons began. The only instructions he said to her was, "This was made to track your knowledge. Do not use it for fooling around."

      It sounded easy enough until it started to go missing.

      The workshop was torn up all because of a missing spellbook. One moment, it would be right in front of her face and gone in the next if she turned away. It annoyed her to no end and she couldn't let Merlin find out. He could barely trust her with ingredients, let alone the cabinets. If he found out that she lost a simple book that he gave to her, he would be disappointed. Not even furious, just disappointed. That was scarier than anything else she knew. Eventually, she found it when Douxie was careless enough to boast to his familiar about hiding his fellow apprentice's book. Apparently, it was some sort of payback for almost ending his bloodline back in the village. When they were left in the workshop while Merlin advised the King, Lina took the opportunity to ask the other apprentice if he'd seen her book. It didn't take much for him to admit that he was hiding it in the fifth cabinet. It was as if he was challenging her to open the forbidden door and take what was hers.

      "Go on, open it. We won't snitch," Archie promised, leaping onto the table and beginning to lick his paw. Douxie stopped sweeping the floors and also watched, his eyes gleaming. Lina huffed. Three months into her new life and she was getting punked by a boy and his cat. "What Merlin doesn't know won't hurt him."